Cambou wasn’t at the steps of a courthouse for this recent auction. He was at West Hills High School in Santee, where he teaches 12th-grade Advanced Placement government classes. Like many teachers, his day doesn’t end with the last bell. On this afternoon, he was leading an auction of parking spaces for seniors to raise money for the prom.

Likewise, his students aren’t restricted to their classroom. As a way of earning points in class, they attend Santee City Council meetings, join fundraisers and organize “cash mobs,” where they pick a local business or restaurant and coordinate mass visits to help that merchant.

“I have a project for the AP government class each fall to go and make a positive change in the city, the district or their school,” Cambou said.

He is one of 45 educators who will represent their school districts Saturday night at the 23rd annual San Diego County Teacher of the Year awards. The event, whose major sponsor is Cox Communications, will be held at the Balboa Theatre in downtown San Diego.

The nominees were selected from 26,000 public school teachers in the region. They were judged on their teaching philosophies, their ability to serve as ambassadors of education and their students’ achievements.

The five instructors to be named Saturday as San Diego County teachers of the year will advance to the state competition, which then feeds into the national contest.

In essays submitted to the county Office of Education, the nominees wrote about the extra efforts they make for their students. They often described activities and challenges beyond what the public typically associates with teaching. Anecdotes include comforting grieving students and finding new ways of being creative in education.

All of the nominees wrote about their zeal for teaching and how they try to inspire their students.

“Today is a great day to learn something new,” Heather Smith reminds her students with a sign on the door of her pre-kindergarten class at San Diego’s Willow Grove Elementary, which is part of the Poway Unified School District.

San Marcos High School band teacher Matthew Armstrong wrote that passion guides him, and he gauges his success by what he sees in his students’ eyes. “It’s the spark that lets me know I’m reaching them,” he said. “If I don’t see it, than I’m not being passionate enough about my subject.”

At Santana High School in Santee, teacher Eileen Bagg-Rizzo wrote about how she helped students in the aftermath of March 5, 2001, when an armed student killed two people and wounded 13 on campus.

“Prior to this, I focused on my lesson plans and ‘covering’ all the material,” she said. “The experience of the shooting taught me to look beyond the curriculum and nurture my students each day.”

The year after the shooting, Bagg-Rizzo introduced an activity aimed at promoting positive feelings: Students write three nice things about each of their classmates.

Bagg-Rizzo said she later learned that a suicidal student made it through her dark period in part because of the kind words classmates had expressed to her through the class exercise.

At Valley Center High School in North County, teacher Crystal Rienick remembered how she responded to the death of one of her students this year.

The day after that passing was spent talking, listening, crying and hugging, she said. Students wrote in their classroom journals, watched a video about bullying and wrote some more, which she said connected them on a deeper level.

“My success as a teacher comes down to connections,” Rienick wrote. “Connections between teacher to student, student to student, student to the world and student to him- or herself. This is what kindles the fire rather than filling the vessel.”

In the South Bay Union School District, Howard Pence Elementary teacher Rosa Bracamontes wrote about summoning creativity when she gave students some hands-on activities involving 3-D shapes, but had only one cube for her entire class. The solution? She had them use marshmallows.

At Hillsdale Middle School in El Cajon, music teacher Spencer Caldwell wrote about helping students to produce 11 CDs to raise funds. Those discs have led to performance opportunities such as playing 40 times at Disneyland.

In San Diego, Jessica Graham wrote about helping to transform a shuttered high school with a “less than stellar” reputation into a model campus with four disciplines. Test scores at the campus have been rising, she said.

“As a teacher, I feel that I am accountable for helping them progress,” said Graham, who teaches at the Kearny High School of Science, Connections and Technology. “If I don’t see evidence of that, then I go back to the drawing boards with my team and come up with another way to help them.”

Sweetwater High School teacher David Cobian focused on how teaching is a calling, one of the few domains where a person can help other persons to see the good and the potential they possess.

“To teach is to make a difference, to be a part of making the world a better place, of leveling the playing field and of transforming the life of someone who may not have the same opportunities,” Cobian wrote. “To teach is to bring love, learning and happiness both to students and yourself. Who wouldn’t want that?”

Tickets for the Saturday ceremony cost $20 and are available at the County Office of Education’s website, sdcoe.net. (Look for the “upcoming events” calendar.) The event also will be broadcast live starting at 7 p.m. on Cox Channel 4 San Diego.